It’s not clear how bones that are mainly fully grown females and young males is evidence of targeting of male pods. We’d expect to have more adult male bones if (A) were what the Botai did.

The author tells us the following at the beginning of P2: “Herders of domesticated animals used for meat or milk typically kill off all but a few males before they are fully mature, but not the females.” So if the horse remains found at the Botai sites had consisted mainly of fully grown female and young males, that’s evidence the horses were domesticated, not wild.

The author tells us the following at the beginning of P2: “Herders of domesticated animals used for meat or milk typically kill off all but a few males before they are fully mature, but not the females.” So if the horse remains found at the Botai sites had consisted mainly of fully grown female and young males, that’s evidence the horses were domesticated.

In addition, the author tells us at the end of P2 that if the Botai had begun riding horses, they likely would have kept males alive to ride. If the bones of males are mainly young (as described in the question stem), then that suggests the Botai didn’t keep males alive to ride them.

It’s not clear how horse bones would be evidence of food other than horses. In any case, the evidence described by the question stem is consistent with the domestication of horses for food.

It’s not clear how the evidence described in the question stem is evidence of use of horses in cultural rituals. The proportion of female bones to male bones, or adult male bones to young male bones, has no clear relationship to any ritualistic use of horses.